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Trends in Code switching within Spanish communities in London, UK

Introduction Different societies use various languages in conversations. The phenomenon of mixing languages, so called code-switching which occurs in both monolingual and bilingual societies is commonly known worldwide. London, the capital of the United Kingdom is one of the most multicultural cities worldwide with over 7.000 people speaking over 300 different languages. Over 54.000 accounts for Spanish community. Living in this multicultural city not only provides language exchange opportunities but also lets its inhabitants encounter the code-switching on a daily basis. This phenomenon comes from linguistic field and is very popular even if not many people are aware of its existence and meaning. In this essay the term codeswitching and its categories will be described. Secondly, the reasons for code-switching as well as the examples with an emphasis on Spanish community in London will be demonstrated. Therefore, the trends in code switching within Spanish communities in London will be illustrated. Finally, the consequences and conclusion will be delivered.

Code Switching & its categories

Penelope Gardener-Chloros, a Lecturer in the School of Languages, Linguistics and Culture, at Birkbeck College in London, defines code-switching as 'a combination of two or more linguistic varieties occur in countless bilingual societies and communities (...) It refers to the use of several languages or dialects in the same conversation or sentence

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by bilingual people. It affects practically everyone who is in contact with more than one language or dialect to a greater or lesser extent. Numerous local names designate such mixed talk: Tex Mex, Franglais, BBC Grenglish, Chinglish, Spanglish, Tuti Futi etc' P. Gardener-Chloros (4: 2009) Thus, code switching denotes simply mixing at least two different languages together, wherein one of them is not the first language of the interlocutor.

Bloom and Gumperz distinguished three categories of code switching. These consist of conversational, situational and metaphorical code switching. The conversational CS occurs when the speaker uses at least two languages in the speech event. On the other hand, the second category refers to the language alternation performed by the same speaker in different speech situations or in monolingual utterances. The last category classifies CS on the basis of its social and pragmatic motivation.

Reasons for CS, criticism After having defined the code-switching term and presented its categories, the factors which determine CS as well as the reasons for its use will be addressed. One of the factors which determines this linguistic phenomenon may be the language use and word frequency. Thus, it is significant to acknowledge how often the L1 is used and how often certain words in

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a certain language are used. Furthermore, Grojean states: There are also interesting communicative and social reasons for code-switching such as personalizing a message, emphasizing a point, changing one's role (e.g. from friend to employer), including or excluding someone, emphasizing group identity which refers to we and they code. Also code switching may be a solution to a decreased language proficiency, so called semilingualism which accentuates the belief that bilinguals almost speak both languages properly. Some concepts may simply be expressed better in other language rather than finding equivalent in their first language. In addition, CS may be a strategy for filling the linguistic needs. For instance, inserting a single word or a phrase in other language spoken by the interlocutor. At last, people may use code switching in order to be better understood by their listeners or to improve their comprehension skills. Therefore, there are many reasons for code switching which becomes more and more common within bilingual and multilingual communities around the globe. Nevertheless, some will claim that code switching is not as meaningful as it seems and may criticize it. As Grojean states: Even though it is widespread, code-switching has been criticized by some who feel that it is done out of pure laziness and that it is a grammarless mixture of two languages (...) One consequence of this is that some bilinguals never code-switch and may look down upon others who do, while others restrict it to a situation in which they will not be stigmatized for doing so.(Grojean, article) Although the summary of Grojeans article on code switching assures the readers that code switching is meaningful and requires language skills as he states further: Linguists have spent many years studying the intermingling of languages and one clear outcome has been that instead of being a haphazard and ungrammatical mixture of two languages, code-

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switching follows very strict linguistic constraints requiring good competence in more than one language. (Grojeans article)

CS within Spanish communities in London It suffices to say that with an increasing number of immigrants entering the UK, in particular London the code switching is recognised more and more within society. My research concerned the trends in code switching within Spanish communities in London. The main question of the research was: Does Spanish community in the London use code switching? Many Spanish speaker including Roehampton students were asked about CS. Mostly the asked people said they used CS although they were not aware of the term code switching especially those from other backgrounds, such as Spanish people who came to London in order to find employment. However the majority admits that they do use Spanglish and find it helpful while communicating with others whose L1 is not Spanish. In order to support this research a few answers of Spanish speakers who were asked about CS will be provided. One of them was the answer given by Roehampton student who claimed that he often uses Spanish while communicating in English. 'It happens really often. I am talking in English and I use Spanish words in a mixed language Spanglish. Jose, Roehampton student Spanglish which was mentioned by the interviewee denotes a hybrid language combining words and idioms from both Spanish and English, esp. Spanish speech that uses many English words and expressions (Oxford English dictionary).

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Another real life example was documented by myself which presents a conversation between a Spanish speaker and an English speaker. The conversation consists of a casual chat regarding New Years Eve plans where Spanish speaker uses code switching replacing certain words between English and Spanish. Therefore, it may be assumed that code switching is used by Spanish communities in London whether they are aware of it or not, although they are evidently not the only one community who makes use of this phenomenon.

Spanish code switching in literature

Furthermore, Spanish-English and English-Spanish code switching may also be encountered in literature. These are a few examples of the texts which have been included in A written corpus of Spanish/English Code Switching which was used in order to perform a research on Spanish/English and English/Spanish CS. The research on code switching in English/Spanish and vice verca included 30 texts with about 3000 pages (consisting of 9 novels and 10 short stories) published in the US between 19702000. While selecting texts two factors were taken into consideration: the representativeness of the larger data as well as the overall amount and character of code switching. In Spanish/English CS the ratio of English Language is small, code switching is predictable, the cognitive demands on the reader are minimal. Texts are listed in ascending order depending on the amount and complexity of CS that they consist of. Each heading is summarised and the overall style of CS is described. Texts

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are coded according to genre, ML, authors initials. Eg. SEGS The dreamers denotes Story in English (SE) GS - stands for Gary Soto the author.

The headline SEGS Gary Soto. 1990. 'Two dreamers' is an example of a short English story written by Gary Soto - contains English/Spanish intersententail codeswitching presented in a dialogue. It is narrative and contains all Spanish italicized therefore it is easily noticeable for the reader. In addition, itersentential code switches consist of nouns and noun phrases. Literal translation is included therefore the reader should have no difficulty understanding the text.

Another headline NEGS Gary Soto, 1991, 'Taking sides' 135p. illustrates a Novel in English/Spanish written by Gary Soto. It contains iItersentential code switching mainly with nouns.There is no literal translation. All the Spanish is italicized which again makes it easier for the reader to differentiate code switching in between the lines.

The last example which is worth attention as it has a different headline is NEAR Jr. 1993 and is titled, Spidertown 323p which stands for a novel which includes English/Spanish CS and is written by Abraham Rodriguez. Here code switching appears in the dialogue as in the first example. It is also narrative and contains contextual translation, thus it should be easily understood by the reader whether he is bilingual or monolingual.

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Code switching also appears in prose. As Grojean mentions Susana Chvez-Silverman, a professor at Pomona College in California uses her bilingual skills and employs them into writing her poetry. The example written by Chavex-Silverman is titled Killer Crnicas: Bilingual Memories and Grojean presented the extract of this particular piece in his article which is a genuine example of Spanish/English code switching: "Como northern Califas girl, of course, habi visto mucho nature espectacular; the Pacific Ocean como yarda de enfrente, for starters, y los sequoia giant redwoods. Yes, especially los redwoods."

Hence, it may be considered that Spanish/English and English/Spanish code switching is commonly used whether in a spoken or written form; it does exist and creates part of our cultural life. In addition, it suffices to say that code switching not only occurs in a conversation between multilinguals and in literature but may also appears in media, for instance in TV commercials, advertisements, films as well as in music industry, eg. in the lyrics of famous artists songs. The example of a well known singer who uses codeswitching in her musical pieces is Jeniffer Lopez.

Consequences and Conclusions

There are over 24.000 Spanish speakers in London. Real life examples prove that unpredictable number of Spanish immigrants in the capital city of London use code switching on a daily basis although might not be aware of CS phenomenon. Code Switching from Spanish to English and vice verca not only exists in daily life speech but

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is also commonly used in media: advertisements, music, film industries as well as in literature. The use of CS may be affected by diverse factors such as: language use (how often L1 is used by the speaker) and word frequency (how often a particular word is used in the language) and so forth. The phenomenon of code switching is therefore widespread and significant within society. It is naturally produced by humans interaction with other bilingual speakers. It provides opportunities of self-development within languages and culture. It might be criticized at times though overall it is worth experimenting with and should be experienced by everyone.

Bibliography:

Callahan, L. (2004) 'Spanish/English codeswitching in a written corpus', Philadelphia, PA: J. Benjamins Gardener-Chloros, P. (2009) 'Code-switching', Cambridge University Press, New York Modern Language Association (MLA): "spanglish." Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 06 Dec. 2011. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/spanglish> McKean, E. (2005). Oxford American Dictionary, The second edition, electronic Apple Mac edition Heredia R, R. & Brown M, J. 'Code-switching' Texas A & M International University Retrieved 06 Dec.2011 from: http://www.tamiu.edu/~rheredia/switch.htm Grosjean, F. 'Life as a Bilingual' Intermingling Languages: From Conversation to Literature' Retrieved 06 Dec. 2011 from:

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http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201101/intermingling-languagesconversation-literature 'Speaking Spanglish' Retrieved 06 Dec.2011 from: http://www.dianadudgeon.com/speaking-spanglish/